


The Playhouse Monstrosa

by brawltogethernow



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Jägermonsters - Freeform, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 03:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawltogethernow/pseuds/brawltogethernow
Summary: "During Bill's reign, some bored Jägers decide to do a play about the lives of previous Heterodynes. There is at least one musical episode."





	The Playhouse Monstrosa

**Author's Note:**

> I received the summary as an anonymous message on Tumblr, and...challenge accepted?

“Hy heard,” says Zoff. He’s leaning over a low stone wall, the kind so ancient it’s old even to Jägers, that looks like it grew up out of the land. Except over the past hour or so he’s melted, sort of, from leaning to slumping to hanging, and now he’s just folded over the wall at the waist, bare feet scraping the ground on one side, hat in his hands to keep it from falling to the ground on the other. “Hy heard dot pipple do dis ting, where dey put on plays about de Masters Bill und Barry, vot dey iz doink like.”

“Vot?” says Ioan, who has not slumped in a similar way since they sat down because he was already lying on the ground by the wall to begin with. His hat is on his chest. “ _Ve_ could do _dot_.”

“…Hyu tink.”

Ioan makes a scoffing noise that sounds like a drain unclogging. “Ve saw dem do _lots_ of domb tings ven dey vas lettink us watch dem. Iz goot material, dot is.”

“Brodder. They wasn’t really _lettink_ us….”

“Whyfor iz pipple tellink stories about de Boyz now? Dey never did dis about any of de odder Masters.”

“Pipple ectually _like_ dem,” sighs Zoff. “Iz different.”

“ _Ve_ liked dem,” says Ioan. “Und ve saw _dem_ doing domb tings too! See? Pipple iz _vaisting_ an _hopportunity_.”

 

After that it just sort of…happens.

Despite being inspired by news of traveling shows, they decide to stick to Mechanicsburg, because they’ve been ordered not to leave it. Jenka downright refuses to be involved in any capacity outside of pointing and laughing, and General Gkika snorts at the group of soldiers who lose a draw and go in a clump to timidly ask her if she wants to act and says she thinks she’d better stay on call for when they injure themselves, so all of the woman characters are played by male Jägers in wigs. Because of the sort of people their Old Heterodynes hung out with, were attacked by, and sometimes were, there are also a _lot_ of Jägers in chainmail bikinis. They scrounge a couple choice pieces from the Masters’ collections, and make the rest out of foil.

“No, no!” says Zeff (who normally avoids being near Zoff, for name overlap reasons, but whose mother a long time ago was on the stage, and was drafted for his expertise), standing before the stage the night after their first Preview. “Dere is not enough fire! Trust me, de audience _luffs_ a fire!”

“Hyu sure dat isn’t just when dey isn’t likink de play, and wants the actors to burn op?” asks Minik speculatively. Minik paints, and has been doing the stages. “Hyu better not wreck mine scenery.”

“Ve iz not gon wreck–”

“Hy _come after hyu_ if you wreck it!”

Zeff snorts. Minik growls. They get into a light fist fight.

“Oh, my lord,” mutters Carson, who came for the free entertainment (all public works are free for the seneschal) and has _not_ been disappointed. He tugs on his muttonchops, which along with what remains of his hair have been quickly going to salt and pepper over recent years. His grown son (who had to pay), stands beside him and snickers into his hands. The son’s fiancé, a lovely and ferocious local girl named Arella, is looking on with what can only be described as bloodthirsty glee.

Zeff and Minik knock over a can of purple paint, which goes everywhere.

 

“Velcome back, sveethot!” Zoff greets his great-great-great niece-in-law, a blacksmith who makes a habit of stopping by the Playhouse Monstrosa when she’s in the area. He raises an arm to wave from where he’s hunched over a script spread out on top of an empty barrel. _De Goot Heterodyne versuz Efferybody_ has been surprisingly popular, if more among locals than tourists, and the original group of troth players has doubled in size and is now brainstorming _Knife Keeses a Princess und Gets a Haircut (working title)_. “You see ennyting goot vhile hyu vas out of town?”

“Only a few small uprisings,” says his niece. “And an opera. It was about historical heroes, that kind of thing.”

“Opera?” says Zoff. “Vit de singing, yah?”

He eyes his script (which is one huge piece of paper, folded unevenly a dozen times and then scribbled all over, largely with pictures, with arrows indicating reading order) speculatively. “ _…Ve_ could do _dot_.”

He reaches out and draws some musical notes next to a shouting stick figure’s head.


End file.
